Progress hosts teach-in on Scott's policy

Jan. 30, 2013

Written by

Molly Reed

Staff Writer

In a small, white cinder-block room with stained, grey carpet 20 Florida State students met for a teach-in on Rick Scott’s Blue Ribbon Task Force.

Progress Coalition, one of three FSU political parties running in the SGA election on Feb. 27, provided fellow students with an equal voice throughout the campus community and to fight for what they believe is right, and in this case, is going against what the Governor’s Task Force is aiming for.

This was on top of several other budget changes in the higher education system such as the 300 million dollar state funding cut for the 11 state universities and an overall 1.3 billion dollar cut to the state education system.

The Blue Ribbon Task Force in addition proposes “accountability” metrics such as percentage of graduates employed or continuing education, bachelor’s degrees in areas of “strategic emphasis,” cost per graduate and cost to graduate, and the salary of graduates.

“This has no correlation to quality of education,” Ralph Wilson, co-founder of Students for Progress, told students. “This has to do with cost-efficiency, which is a business consideration.”

With student representation as one of the main arguments of the meeting, Wilson described the Board of Governance’s recommendations and how student action will be the only way to make a change to anything.

One of the Board’s recommendations was to have direct involvement in the appointment of the university presidents, which raised many questions in the room.

“This gives the B.O.G. an opportunity to choose people whose views match the views of the board,” said Wilson. “Without a university president that will never stand up to the B.O.G., student representation will be even smaller than it already is.”

Some of the other recommendations by the Board of Governance include University mission statements being revised to better fit the Blue Ribbon Task Force’s recommendation, providing complete budget control to the B.O.G. as a “traditional lever” for “enabling outcomes” suggested by the Blue Ribbon Task Force, and the B.O.G. must explicitly state to university presidents what they will get for following the Blue Ribbon Task Force recommendations.

“We rely on the public good,” said Wilson, a graduate student in mathematics from Alabama. “They want to repurpose our public institution for private gain.”

Ending with ways to get involved and staying active within the University and community, Wilson explained how Progress Coalition plans to run for positions in student government and how they will keep their voices heard in the Capitol.

“What the students in this state do in the next couple of months will determine our future,” Wilson said.